* 1/30/26 - WTTW - Illinois Announces Plan To Tap Brakes on E-Bikes’ Wild Ride...................
Buzz Sawyer
“Ride Safe, Ride Smart, Ride Ready” Campaign Confronts Rapidly Growing Micromobility Risks
Illinois Announces Plan To Tap Brakes on E-Bikes’ Wild Ride
The explosive growth in the use of electronic bikes, scooters, skateboards and other “micromobility” devices by Illinoisans has caught state officials flat-footed.
Now legislators, educators, transportation advocates and others are attempting to play catch-up.
Riders, drivers and pedestrians have been “navigating a system designed for a different era,” Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said during a news conference Thursday. “Times have changed. It’s important for us to provide some guidelines.”
Giannoulias and other stakeholders announced a new initiative — “Ride Safe, Ride Smart, Ride Ready” — designed to establish guardrails around currently unregulated devices, particularly a class of larger and faster e-bikes, called e-motos, capable of reaching speeds of 50 miles per hour.
The lack of restrictions on where this new group of devices can be operated, and who can operate them, has put lives at risk, Giannoulias said, citing a pair of high-profile fatalities involving e-bikes. A Mt. Prospect teen riding an e-bike was killed in 2025 when he collided with a pick-up truck; and in 2022, an Illinois State University official died after he was struck by an e-bike rider in Bloomington-Normal.
State Sen. Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago) and state Rep. Barbara Hernandez (D-Aurora) will help introduce legislation that will update state standards. Villivalam is chair of the Senate’s transportation committee and Hernandez is vice-chair of the same committee in the House.
While Villivalam praised e-bikes and the like as affordable, environmentally friendly transportation alternatives to cars, laws haven’t kept pace with the technology, he said, creating a hazardous environment as the devices go “whizzing by” on sidewalks, roads and paths.
The intent of the legislation will be “modernizing our approach with clear statewide standards,” Villivalam said.
For example, the existing vehicle code restricts the operation of lower-speed e-bikes — the fastest of which max out under 30 mph — to riders age 16 and older and prohibits their use on sidewalks. Riders of low-speed e-scooters must be 18 years old, per state regulations. Meanwhile, there’s no age limit on operating high-speed e-bikes, e-scooters, electric skateboards, electric unicycles or e-motos, which Giannoulias called “more motorcycle than bicycle.”
Municipalities across the state have stepped in to enact their own laws around the devices, which has created a patchwork of rules.
“The lack of clarity … is downright dangerous,” Giannoulias said.
Legislation is just one prong of the “Ride Safe, Ride Smart, Ride Ready” initiative, with education being another major component.
“I truly think parents don’t understand the risk,” said Kristine Cieslak, an ER physician at Lurie Children’s Hospital.
While she and her colleagues have always treated children injured in falls from bikes and scooters, they’re seeing far more serious cases related to faster, larger e-bikes and e-scooters.
Cieslak recounted facial fractures, elbow fractures requiring surgery, skull fractures and traumatic brain injuries — “things that are life-changing,” she said.
These youngsters are essentially “drivers,” Cieslak said, and many of them aren’t strong enough or coordinated enough to handle the vehicles they’re using.
Driver’s ed curricula will be updated to include guidelines on micromobility devices, and advocacy organizations such as Ride Illinois, which encourages safe cycling, will also play a role in spreading awareness of proper use.
“The chaos experienced in too many Illinois communities in 2025 — for example, teens recklessly riding e-motos at unsafe speeds — must not be repeated,” said Dave Simmons, executive director of Ride Illinois. “Common sense, balanced legislation at the state level that doesn’t add strain on law enforcement will be an effective and prudent path forward for Illinois.”
Giannoulias said that his office, after teasing the Ride Safe effort on social media, had been “blown away” by calls from people supporting the need for regulation of e-bikes, e-scooters, etc.
“We’re going to need everyone’s help as we plow through Springfield,” Giannoulias said.
Contact Patty Wetli: pwe...@wttw.com